Ahhhhh, the joys of flying while D…..

Sir you’re gonna need to remove your pager…..Ummmm it’s an insulin pump. Oh….Ok, take it off please..Ummm, Id really rather not if I don’t have to…as I unclip it and show it to him. .Ok, I guess. You need to put everything else including your pager in the xray machine. Ummmm, its a glucose meter…. A what? A glucose meter, I’d rather not run it through the xray machine (I understand you probably can, but as I am gonna be on airplanes for the next 5 hours, I’m not really willing to chance anything including it happening to alarm while being off my body. I probably would be hog tied and tasered …lol)

Ok , Sir, Please put it in the basket and come with me says the security lady after I walk through the xray machine. I am directed to a little holding area off from everyone else right by the xray machine, and told not to touch anything and to keep my hands out of my pockets. A little holding area “fenced in” by ropes as I stand there with my shoes off and feeling like a square peg in a round hole.

The following is Loudly announced by the female security officer who is not allowing other folks to proceed….. to the other 5 security folks and the 50 people now starting to back up in line.

WHITE MALE…NO ALARM…. No response…
WHITE MALE…NO ALARM.!!!!!....as she holds up my cgms in the basket
WHITE MALE….NO ALARM.!!!!!!...again, no response
For the fourth time….WHITE MALE !!!!!.....NO ALARM…..
Ok, now I’m starting to feel like a suspected terrorist…
WHITE MALE….NO ALARM…..!!!!!!!

At this point I’m starting to think, jeeessshhh, it isn’t bad enough that I have to deal with this in my own way 24 hours a day and struggle to stay motivated, regulated, and healthy, Now I am being treated like a domestic terrorist.

At that point, a man comes over and and says he wants to wand me…. Sir, I need you to hold your hands out and spread your legs…. Ok, fine… go ahead…. I say in my sock feet and assume the crucifixion position. Ok great. Sir, I’m gonna need to pat you down. Ok, as he feels anything that could be in any spot on my body. Now I’m starting to feel like I am being singled out because of my diabetes needs and am starting to take offense. Sir keep your arms up, don’t touch anything, and keep your hands out of your pockets. Ok, great! he says after he pats me down.

Step over here please sir, and don’t touch any of your stuff and keep your hands out of your pockets….Dont touch anything sir….
I now move to the “other” holding cell of ropes…as I slough over in my sock feet.

Sir, I’m gonna have to wipe down your insulin pump and your glucose meter and place it in this chemical reader over here to check for traces of potential chemicals. Please keep your hands out and stand in place. Please don’t move and keep your hands out of your pockets.

At this point, I truly was having emotional feelings. I understand that they have a job to do, but I was really feeling denigrated. I remembered at that point that I had been shooting targets at the gun range the day before, I was hoping I wouldn’t have a problem with gunpowder on my cgms or pump. I imagine I would have been gang tackled if the chemical reader had had a problem…lol

The man wipes down my cgms with a cloth on a set of tongs and then wipes down my insulin pump….He wipes the whole outside of each, front, back, and sides. He puts it in the chemical reader, and we wait….. hmmm hmmm hmmmm hmmmm hmmm de hmmmm woo doot doo hmmm de hmmm hmmm

After what seems like a minute… beeep Ok, sir, you’re fine, thanks for your cooperation. Have a nice flight.

No problem I say as I put my shoes on and collect my stuff which has been seperated by itself in it’s own area. I gather my belongings and try to put everything back as it was, but as I walk away, I really wasn’t ok…

I was very offended and upset and I’m not the type to feel that way.

Hey thanks for degrading me in public before I get on the plane, No problem, just one more thing I will have to accept that goes along with being D. I sit where I can, put on my shoes, reorganize, regroup, and recover mentally.

I’m not sure why it hit me so hard, I’ve been through this before…maybe it was just that I was “In a fish bowl” in the middle of the crowd and being singled out for something that I don’t have a lot of options to control. The whole process was probably less than 5 or 6 minutes, but it seemed like forever.

Oh well, alls well that ends well. After a day of flying, I got to come home to my kids and wife and give them all a hug. I realize that I am very in love with my family…especially when I am separated from them on my business trips. Life goes on. However, I am guessing I will probably cringe next time I hear: Step over here please sir!!!

The FDA says:

This is to alert you to the possibility of falsely elevated blood glucose results when using GDH-PQQ glucose test strips on patients who are receiving therapeutic products containing certain non-glucose sugars. These sugars can falsely elevate glucose results, which may mask significant hypoglycemia or prompt excessive insulin administration, leading to serious injury or death. The following provides background information on this problem, a summary of fatality reports FDA has received, and recommendations to reduce the risk. This problem can occur wherever these products are used including in-patient and out-patient healthcare facilities, and at home.

This seems to be a recurring topic, here’s a FDA warning video from 2008:

Find full details here: http://www.fda.gov/MedicalDevices/Safety/AlertsandNotices/PublicHealthNotifications/ucm176992.htm

Here is a full list of to known affected Meters/Strips:

List of GDH-PQQ Glucose Test Strips
The following test strips (with associated meters) use GDH-PQQ methodology as of August 2009:
Roche Diagnostics:

• ACCU-CHEK Comfort Curve test strips, for use with:


• ACCU-CHEK Inform meters [model 2001201]


• ACCU-CHEK Complete meters [models 200 and 250]


• ACCU-CHEK Advantage meters [models 888, 831, 850, and 768]


• ACCU-CHEK Voicemate meters [model 0009221]


• ACCU-CHEK Aviva test strips, for use with:


• ACCU-CHEK Aviva meters [models 525, 535, and 555]


• ACCU-CHEK Compact test strips, for use with:


• ACCU-CHEK Compact meters [model GF]


• ACCU-CHEK Compact Plus meters [models GP and GT]


• ACCU-CHEK Go test strips


• ACCU-CHEK Go meters [model GJ]


• ACCU-CHEK Active test strips


• ACCU-CHEK Active meters [models GG and GN]

Abbott Diabetes Care:

• Freestyle test strips, for use with:


• FreeStyle meters


• FreeStyle Flash meters


• FreeStyle Freedom meters


• Freestyle Lite test strips, for use with:


• FreeStyle Lite meters


• FreeStyle Freedom Lite meters

Home Diagnostics:

TRUEtest test strips
TRUEresult meters
TRUE2go meters

Smiths Medical:

Abbott Diabetes Care Freestyle test strips, for use with:
CoZmonitor blood glucose module (for use with the Deltec Cozmo Insulin Pump)
Insulet:
Abbott Diabetes Care Freestyle test strips, for use with:
OmniPod Insulin Management System

Well, I am glad to say that I am back in one piece after a wonderful week on North Captiva Island in Florida. After about day 3, I kept getting an alarm and my pump quit working. Oooohhh noooooo!!!! Now on any other trip, I have always remembered to bring an old one as a backup, NOT this time, dang-it.

I called Medtronic, and they over nighted me one. I am always amazed how something can get from California to an Island in Florida only accessible by ferry in less than 24 hours. Wow! Medtronic was great with their service as always.

I did however have to go on the needle for about 24 hours. Now the problem was that I only had fast acting Humalog, and nothing else. Every 3 hours, get up test, or check the cgms (which was also acting a little funny that day) take some insulin. Everything worked great until about hour 23 when I went down to the office to hopefully pick up my pump. They told me it wasnt there yet. Ok, no problem, it’s probably on the next ferry over.

That is the last thing I remember. I was almost blacked out on my way back to the house as apparently I was over injecting and was having a severe hypo. Thank God my son was driving around on his golf cart as he saw me driving at about 1/2 mile an hour with a blank look on my face. He got me home and my wife pumped me up with glucose gels, of course the inevitable super high followed.

However the pump came, and I was able to get back on a basal rate to get back under control. Lessons learned? Oh yeah, always bring a back up pump or some slow acting insulin when leaving town or being away from home. I already knew, that. Somehow, when things are buzzing along well, you don’t really think about the possibility of problems. I messed up and didn’t have a plan B. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

The good Lord and my family have saved my skin. Yet Again!

Keep going
Peace, Bob

Whiskers on his horse…funny new P.S.A. about diabetics managing their A1C levels

Just finished this one this a.m.    Its pretty funny stuff.  I hope ya like it.  Feel free to pass it around if you want to…..Thanks Bob

If you cant make the link work, you can see it and others at      www.youtube/1diabetic

Ran across this the other day, this is definitely a new one for me but perhaps this is old news.

In the middle of the night in a “typical” family home in Florida, a 12 year old girl, named Hunter, sleeps, while her German Shepherd, Diva, lies close by, snoozing on her own bed. All is well with the world…or is it? You see, several times during the night, Diva will get up and check Hunter’s scent. If Diva doesn’t like what she smells, she will alert Hunter’s parents…starting with a nudge, escalating to turning circles or to jumping, whatever it takes to get her job done.

A German Shepherd that can alert you of a dangerous BG, how cool is that?

Find the full story here:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/carrie-pollare/doggies-rule-the-story-of_b_185379.html

While you could get a tattoo which measures your blood glucose, I can see the benefits having a blood glucose sensor you can pet (even if it isn’t as accurate)

Doggies rule indeed.

Whiskers Brimley    One of my recent videos…..Sorry, I crack myself up…..

You gotta keep smiling with the D” 

Keep Smiling,  Keep Going…..............Bob

 

Entry event tagging really helps keep things in context when inputting your stats. When you tag entries it helps then aggregate trends and stats for that tag over time. You can then find out trends such as what your average blood sugar was before and after breakfast for example.

In order to encourage entry tagging and make it easier, we’ve recently pushed out a few small new feature updates. Previously you had to manually type in your tag for each entry with the added benefit of it auto-completing the tag name based on what you were typing.

Top Tags Pop-up Box

We’ve added to this and now offer a pop-up box with your top 20 tags so you can easily click on the tag you want without having to touch the keyboard.

All you have to do is click on the tag input text-field and it will pop up. If you don’t want to select an existing tag and would rather enter a new one just start typing.

This makes it easy for you to have quick access to the tags you use the most (i.e: “Before Breakfast”, “After Dinner”, “High Sugar” etc).

Pop-up design credit and inspiration has to go to the Freckle team, they did a great job.

Auto-Tagging

Manual tagging is great, but what if you have a semi-routine schedule or habit? Such as always eating breakfast between 6am-8am, Exercising after work between 5pm-7pm or eating lunch late at 2pm-3pm?

Well now you can add auto-tagging rules to automatically tag your entries based specifically off some of these common routines in your schedule. Tags will be automatically attached to entries which match your rules. Right now the rules are based on time and entry type, but we’re hoping to expand it in the future to be able to match more criteria.

You can access your Auto-Tagging list in your settings (http://manage.sugarstats.com/auto_taggings) and there is even an example for you to create your own rules from. So now anytime you add an entry, via the web or mobile, if it matches any of your existing auto-tagging rules those tags will be added to that entry.

Using both the new tag pop-up box and the auto-tagging functionality is optional, so if you want to keep using the previous methods you’re welcome to do so.

Why Tag Entries?

Tagging is important to keep things in context. So if you add your tags to all your sugar entries for example, you can then go to your Last 30 Days page and see this:

These are just the first in a number of future tag enhancements we’re planning and we will be adding more and more new features based on your tags.

We hope you like it and that this makes tagging entries easier overall. If you have any suggestion, feedback or notice bugs feel free to let us know: support@sugarstats.com